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https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61385#0099
Chapter IX.—Sources of the Speculum. Alcuin’s Liber, xciii
facts. The Speculum stands as the intense utterance of a poetical
temperament, responsive at once to nature and to art, but in touch
with earnest daily life. Such utterance meets nature in the reminder
that “art is but the masque for nature.” Dante speaks for Guido of
Warwick and of Tours :
“Thus hath one Guido from another ta’en
The praise of speech.”
CHAPTER IX.
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF THE SPECULUM.
“Ut of latin Sis song is dragen on engleis speche.”
De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber of Alcuin1 {Alcuinus, Flaccus Al-
binus) followed with much fidelity is the underlying fundamental
source of the Speculum in its main outlines. The treatise in its first
issue appeared in the edition of A. Dv Chesne, Paris, 1617. It was
reprinted by Eroben and Migne : Beati Flacci Albini sev Alcvini
Abbatis, Caroli Magni Regis ac Imperatoris, Magistri Opera.2
“ Cvra ac stvdio Frobenii, S. R. I. Principis et Abbatis ad S. Emmera-
mvm Ratisbonse,Tomi Secvndi, Volvmen primvm, M.DCC.LXXVII.”
The Liber is to be found, p. 128 ff. The print of Migne is contained
in column 615 ff. of the second volume of Alcuin’s works, the one
hundred and first of the Series, Patrologies Cursus, Completus (CI),
1851 : B. Flacci Albini seu Alcuini Opera Omnia, J. P. Migne.
Alcuin’s advice3 to Count Guido furnished material for numerous
Latin MSS. preserved to-day in the libraries of Spain, Italy, France,
Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and for many transcripts of greater or
less degree of completion and accuracy in libraries of England. Two
fragmentary translations4 in English at the transition stage of the
language are extant. One of these, a MS. of the Library of the
1 Glosses representing the Alcuini Exhortatio are printed in the well-known
Wright-Wiilker, Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, London, 1884, pp.
86 and 87.
2 This work is characterized further as follows: Post primam editionem, a
viro clarissimo D. Andrea Qvercetano evratam, de novo collecta, mvltis locis
emendata, et opvscvlis prrirnvm repertis plvrimvm aveta, variisqve modis illvs-
trata, etc.
3 See the supplement to BiblioMque des Peres Bigne Anciennes lecons de
Canisius, ed. Basnage, Tom. ii., and Ceillier, Bistoire des Auteurs Sacres et
Eccl&siastigues, Tom. xii. p. 187.
4 The Kentish Glosses preserved in the Cotton MS. Vesp. D vi, printed in
Wright’s Vocabularies, suggest to the reader a possible Englishing of the Liber
in the ninth century. Regarding these Alcuini Capitula Theologica ad Guidonem,
facts. The Speculum stands as the intense utterance of a poetical
temperament, responsive at once to nature and to art, but in touch
with earnest daily life. Such utterance meets nature in the reminder
that “art is but the masque for nature.” Dante speaks for Guido of
Warwick and of Tours :
“Thus hath one Guido from another ta’en
The praise of speech.”
CHAPTER IX.
PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF THE SPECULUM.
“Ut of latin Sis song is dragen on engleis speche.”
De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber of Alcuin1 {Alcuinus, Flaccus Al-
binus) followed with much fidelity is the underlying fundamental
source of the Speculum in its main outlines. The treatise in its first
issue appeared in the edition of A. Dv Chesne, Paris, 1617. It was
reprinted by Eroben and Migne : Beati Flacci Albini sev Alcvini
Abbatis, Caroli Magni Regis ac Imperatoris, Magistri Opera.2
“ Cvra ac stvdio Frobenii, S. R. I. Principis et Abbatis ad S. Emmera-
mvm Ratisbonse,Tomi Secvndi, Volvmen primvm, M.DCC.LXXVII.”
The Liber is to be found, p. 128 ff. The print of Migne is contained
in column 615 ff. of the second volume of Alcuin’s works, the one
hundred and first of the Series, Patrologies Cursus, Completus (CI),
1851 : B. Flacci Albini seu Alcuini Opera Omnia, J. P. Migne.
Alcuin’s advice3 to Count Guido furnished material for numerous
Latin MSS. preserved to-day in the libraries of Spain, Italy, France,
Germany, Ireland, Scotland, and for many transcripts of greater or
less degree of completion and accuracy in libraries of England. Two
fragmentary translations4 in English at the transition stage of the
language are extant. One of these, a MS. of the Library of the
1 Glosses representing the Alcuini Exhortatio are printed in the well-known
Wright-Wiilker, Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, London, 1884, pp.
86 and 87.
2 This work is characterized further as follows: Post primam editionem, a
viro clarissimo D. Andrea Qvercetano evratam, de novo collecta, mvltis locis
emendata, et opvscvlis prrirnvm repertis plvrimvm aveta, variisqve modis illvs-
trata, etc.
3 See the supplement to BiblioMque des Peres Bigne Anciennes lecons de
Canisius, ed. Basnage, Tom. ii., and Ceillier, Bistoire des Auteurs Sacres et
Eccl&siastigues, Tom. xii. p. 187.
4 The Kentish Glosses preserved in the Cotton MS. Vesp. D vi, printed in
Wright’s Vocabularies, suggest to the reader a possible Englishing of the Liber
in the ninth century. Regarding these Alcuini Capitula Theologica ad Guidonem,